Interesting Titles

After reading the two stories by Anee Bender, "Deddieland", and "Mother''''r", in "Willful Creatures",the theme of which these two talk about relates to the theme of dominant/patriarchal. Therefore, these stories talk about an authoritive figure who takes advantage of the vulnerable. In these stories, the authoritive masculinity role is portrayed in the aspect of taking advantage of the feminist sex. A way of interpreting it as a feministway, or thru the feminist literary critic, who are drawn to and emphasized by the different ways women are mistreated by the masculine figure.

Looking at the story "Debbieland", My opinion in interpreting the story was the fact that the protagonist was a woman, who beat up other women, there is a group of girls who take advantage of a vulnerable girl they think of as "Debbie". I compared the group of girls having the same attitude by trying to portray themselves as a masculine figure would, they would act superior, with authority, discriminating women. This can be compared to what was said in class, and on the reading that there is a little 'Masculinity', and 'Feminine' aspects found in both sexes, this can be related to the way the group of girl 'bullies'portray, by acting as a masculine figure, or having there 'masculine' figure show. This group of bullies talk nicely to the girl they presume is Debbie, "She tells Debbie some casual praise. Perhaps for the final net, she complimients Debbie on the skirt." (60) After this compliment, Debbie becomes vulnerable as a result of her feeling attractive, then she gets beaten up, and left there bleeding and torn of her clothes. After they get bored beating her, the goup of bullies find another victim, who they also name Debbie, I think that they name all the vulnerable victims Debbie, as a way of describing or comparing it to a person they might of have known of having that name, a possibility might be a mother who as they talk about some not having, but probably one of them did, who was probably beaten, either by a masculine figure or by bullies. In the other story "Mother''''r", this story is about a man who takes advantage of divorced women, all he seeks out of all these relationships is for his sexual desire. He was just interested in his desire, and after he acomplished it he moved on to a different women, he seeked any women, "He took a train, and met women of every size and shape in different cities." He didn't care who it was all he wanted was pleasure, and after that he never call them back. "He never liked any of them for longer than one or two times." It got to the point where he met a 'Scarlet', a famous public figure, who was a single mother. He started a conversation with this women who "Everyone else was afraid to talk to her." (76) Probably becasue she was attractive, he talk nicely to her which made her feel loved again, and then in the end he left her and never talked to her again, like all the other women he had met, he treated her the same way. In the end the way a feminist critic might interpret this story, is by focusing on the desire of this masculine figure, how he made all the women feel love for him, but in the end his desire for the scarlet was superior, he exlained it to her how she needed to tame it, but the man ends up not able to handle, it was said as "This is the house of your desire, he whispered to himself, looking at the small walls behind him, and when he closed his eyes the torrent of longing waiting inside was so thick he thought he might drown in it." In the end Women critics might interpret the story focusing on the injustices by the man in this story to the maaried women, and in the end the desire was to hard for him to control and handle.